About us

One Essex Court is a pre-eminent commercial set of barristers’ chambers in London. Members provide specialist legal advice, support and advocacy services worldwide, and the barristers' expertise covers all areas of arbitration, litigation, regulation and dispute resolution.

The work here embraces all aspects of domestic and international trade, business, commerce and finance. Barristers at One Essex Court are recognised specialist counsel in the many diverse fields of commercial law, also regularly accepting nominations as arbitrators, mediators and experts.

The principal areas of practice are arbitration, banking and financial services, commercial litigation, civil fraud and investigations, company and insolvency, competition and EU law, energy and natural resources, insurance and reinsurance, intellectual property, media, entertainment and broadcasting, professional liability, public law, sports, gaming and licensing and tax and revenue law.

Chambers is comprised of over 90 full-time practitioners, who regularly appear before the domestic courts and tribunals, dealing with short County Court applications to major trials in the High Court and appeals before the Court of Appeal, the Privy Council and the Supreme Court, as well as the European Courts. They also appear in a wide range of foreign jurisdictions, particularly in the Caribbean (inc. Cayman, BVI, Bermuda and Bahamas) and the Far East (principally Hong Kong and Singapore), and those who act as international arbitrators are regularly appointed to panels with both domestic and overseas arbitral seats. Through the Singapore office at Maxwell Chambers, One Essex Court is able to handle enquiries from clients in real-time and provide local support and assistance to visiting barristers and arbitrators from chambers.

In addition to English law, some of the barristers here are also able to offer advice on the laws of Russia, Ukraine, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

Barristers at One Essex Court aim to offer practical and innovative advice, whilst balancing all the commercial considerations. They appreciate the value of both prompt action and thoroughness, and are able to provide some of the most experienced, skilled and forceful advocacy available.

Members understand the pressures under which solicitors and their clients operate and appreciate that their own performance reflects on the lawyers who instruct them. Barristers here recognise that they are instructed to be part of a team and members also regularly undertake secondments to clients. Where lay-clients approach Chambers directly, members can recommend suitable solicitors to service particular client needs.

Professional clients instructing barristers at One Essex Court are principally solicitors and in-house legal departments, but members of the public, and commercial and non-commercial organisations are now able to instruct barristers directly on most civil matters.

Barristers at One Essex Court are drawn from the very best candidates coming to the Commercial Bar each year. Indeed, the ability of the set to continually attract the most talented pupils year-on-year, is a fundamental reason for chambers' enduring position at the very top of the market. The selection process is naturally focused on intellectual excellence, but prospective pupils and tenants must also exhibit other valuable characteristics which, through a constant process of feedback from clients, we understand are equally valued.

One Essex Court operates a strict ‘no double booking’ policy. The availability of counsel is not ‘hedged’, risking calamitous booking clashes and depriving clients of their chosen counsel. Appropriate preparation time is reserved prior to all hearings and time is set aside at the end of a booking to allow for any overrun. This cornerstone of Chambers approach to the booking of work has long provided clients with unrivalled levels of service, reassurance and certainty.

The Clerks’ Room at One Essex Court is universally regarded as one of the elite operations at the Bar. Divided into teams to provide a dedicated service to distinct groups, clients can be assured of receiving appropriate recommendations, and where counsel for opposing parties are based in Chambers, the structure ensures that confidentiality is respected and maintained.

The clerks at One Essex Court have an unrivalled reputation for flexibility, honesty and transparency, particularly in relation to charging. Where estimated charges have been provided, barristers and their clerks will endeavour to keep within those parameters, assuming that no difficulties or unexpected delays are encountered. Additional charges may apply to extra work arising out of such complications, but where possible the clerks will inform you in advance if an estimate may be significantly exceeded. Both the clerks and the barristers are responsive where a client might be facing financial hardship, and are willing, where appropriate, to consider alternative funding structures.

Barristers at One Essex Court also regularly provide presentations and seminars to clients on a wide range of subjects and those can be tailored to meet a particular client need.